Widow's Hill Notes to Dark Shadows

Episode 12

EPISODE 12: Roger
tries to impress on Vicki that her friendship with Burke is going to be the
death of them all.

Vicki finds Roger on Widow's Hill, admiring the stock
footage. As she meets him, she hears an awful wailing sound on the wind. Roger
tells her that it's "The Widows". Vicki says that that's ridiculous,
she definitely doesn't believe in any Widows. Er, just one question. Exactly
what are they? Or rather, what aren't they? After all, as long as you're
disbelieving in something, you ought to know what you're disbelieving in.)

Roger starts to fill in some more back story. Vicki tries to
make an excuse to leave, but Roger says oh no you don't! Vicki makes everyone
listen to her boring stories, so now it's time for Roger to tell one. It turns
out that Widow's Hill isn't named after a Mr. Widow, as we suspected. It's
named after the widows of Collins employees who stood on the hilltop waiting
for their husbands to return from sea, some of whom took the plunge when they
didn't. Roger explains how Jeremiah Collins solved the problem by building
Collinwood on the property and kicking all the surviving widows off. (Vicki
rationalizes that he probably meant well).

Roger explains that no, Jeremiah didn't mean well, he was
just sick of the noise. Told them to go home, join a Bridge Club, eat bon-bons,
watch the tube, whatever they wanted, as long as they didn't keep him up with
their wailing. And they did. The ones that didn't jump off the hill in protest,
that is. Vicki thinks that was a pretty drastic protest! Roger explains that in
those days, there were no trees to chain themselves to. Few of the widows could
write well enough to sign a petition. There were no phone-in radio shows to
complain to. Options were limited.

And on evenings like this, you can still hear the voices of
the Widows wailing in the wind. Some men in town swear that they've actually
seen the Widows at night, roaming the cliff top, staring out at the sea,
rolling pins in hand. (Yes, rolling pins. If your husband came back after 150
years at sea, wouldn't you want to give them a whack yourself?

Vicki assures Roger that all that talk is just a legend.
Roger thanks her for clearing it up, and offers to call the newspapers. Vicki
again reassures Roger that she doesn't believe in ghosts. She doesn't know why
she doesn't, she just doesn't. Roger assures her to just wait. She'll see
plenty of them after the show's ratings start to go down.

At the Evans Cottage, Sam is oddly insistent that Maggie
leave Collinsport. Go to New York, pack up the truck and move to Beverly,
anything. Sam talks as though he and Maggie both are in some kind of danger if
they stay, but insists that there's no danger (which kind of kills any reason
for leaving). In fact, nothing Sam says gives us the slightest clue about why
Burke went to jail, or what any of it is about. Maggie can't understand why Sam
wants to run away from... whatever, and says that when mom died, Sam filled her
with lots of homilies about how nothing could hurt them if they stuck together.
Why won't those same homilies work now? Sam explains that it's because he's not
as gullible as Maggie was back then.

Maggie gets tough, and says that if Sam won't tell her what
this is all about, she'll never wear her blonde wig again after today. To
nobody's surprise but Maggie's, she gets no traction from this threat. Maggie
would flip her wig if she still had it.

Back on the Cliff top, Roger is chastising Vicki for having
dinner with Burke Devlin. Didn't he warn her back in Episode 6 that Burke is a
dangerous man? Now the two of them are conspiring together! Vicki says they
didn't conspire. All they did was have coffee together, and Burke was
very pleasant... well, at least after the first cup. Roger tells Vicki that
having coffee with Devlin is dangerous too. Yes, even decaf!

It's been at least 20 minutes since anyone gave Vicki the
"Yankee go Home" speech, so Roger urges her again to leave town. Of
course, Vicki doesn't listen. A Gothic ingénue heeding a warning to leave town
would be like Nancy Drew deciding
that a case was too dangerous to solve. Roger wants to know what the two of
them talked about. Vicki tells him. Oh, they talked about how Burke and Roger
prowled the West Wing as kids, how they made mudpies together, how Collinwood
used to have a Parallel Time Room... Roger cuts her short. Geez, the stories
Vicki tells about HIM are as boring as the stories she tells about herself!

Back at the Evans Cottage, Maggie is urging Sam to trust
her with whatever his problem is, and telling him how they need to stick
together. Maggie asks Sam if he
remembers what he said when Maggie's mom died.
"Yeah. 'Where DID she hide
the key to the liquor cabinet, anyway??'"

Back on the cliff top, Roger is warning Vicki that a brutal
and protracted struggle between the Collins family and Burke Devlin is about to
rage over the next 200 episodes, and that if Vicki likes her job, she'd better
be careful about having coffee with the enemy. And before she asks, that goes
for tea too! Carolyn walks up and asks what's going on here? Are Roger and
Vicki forming a suicide pact? Roger says nah, that didn't work out. They relied
too heavily on testimonials from satisfied customers.

Carolyn says Liz wants to see Roger back at the house.
Roger goes to Collinwood, but can't find Liz. That's odd. If she hasn't left in
18 years, she MUST be around here somewhere.

Back at Evanswood, Maggie is giving Sam the old pep talk
about how he's too good to run away from... whatever. Why, when Maggie was a
kid, she always told people that her daddy was smarter than Einstein! A better
painter than Michelangelo! Braver than David! (Sam says he thought he was the drunk.)

The phone rings, and it's Roger looking for Sam. Sam
answers the phone, but then lies it down on the counter and walks away. Maggie
asks where Sam learned that trick. Sam says he used to work in tech support.

Carolyn and Vicki return to Collinwood. Carolyn tells Roger
that Liz is in the Drawing Room with Burke Devlin. Burke's been waiting two
episodes to see Roger, but don't go in just this minute, since neither one of
them is in this episode.

Vicki decides it's about time to get moving on her own
subplot, so she asks if the Collins family has any connection with Bangor.
Carolyn says she goes shopping there a lot, but that probably won't help Vicki
find who her parents are. But she'll go again tomorrow, just in case. Carolyn
suggests that the person to ask about Bangor would be old Matthew. Why not pay
a visit to his cottage? Be sure to carry a basket of goodies and wear a red
cape.

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